


Adalias School for Boys

by Zuzanny



Category: Original Work
Genre: "I see dead people", Amnesia, Brain Injury, Ghosts, Probably discontinued, fic from 2006
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zuzanny/pseuds/Zuzanny
Summary: Jonathan is sent to Adalias School for Boys for reasons he doesn't know.  Now he is sleeping in a room that is supposed to be haunted and his only friend is a boy everyone else ignores for reasons no one will talk about.





	Adalias School for Boys

Adalias School For Boys

by Zuzanny

(INSERTLINEBREAKHERE)

He realized he was drifting, but he didn't know from where or where to.

The countryside was a grey smudge in the rain as the car carried him towards his new home. "Adalias boarding school for boys" the blue and white pamphlets on the seat beside him said. They showed pictures of young men dressed in crisp blue jackets with yellow ties studying in a library, playing musical instruments, performing experiments in the science lab. There were even shots of boys playing foot ball or soccer. Or... some kind of ball game. The word escaped him right then. And hockey.

I like hockey, He recalled with a smile. I like running out in the green fields...

The grey country side was spotted with hills. Probably quite lovely in the sunshine. He wondered if he would get a chance to explore them? He looked at the brochures again. Adalias was once a mansion belonging to some Lord or another who died a widower without sons but a daughter who he had sent off to a convent. It had been run down for a few centuries without anyone affluent enough to fix it up. In the last century it was placed on the heritage list, and was bought and converted into a school. The extensive gardens were used to grow the masses of food needed to feed the teenagers and also other areas used as sports ovals.

He wondered why it was that he was going here?

He dozed. The drive being monotonous without conversation and the driver not taking an interest in anything more than his job. At least the car was warm, and the engine sound soothing.

He woke with a start when the car stopped. It was dark and drizzling outside. The driver got out and was walking around the back of the car to get the passenger's bag. The building they were parked out the front of was six stories high, made of yellow and brown bricks with arches around the doors and windows, and stairs up to the front entrance. The driveway was made of white rock and rose bushes were planted artfully around the edges of the building. At least they would have been artful, but right now they were savagely cut back to their bones. Floodlights lit up the front sign cut out of rock and cast iron. For some reason he found the sight stir something within him. Like a memory, but not. He knew he had never been here before. Right?

A tap at the window made the passenger gasp. It was a man he had never seen before. About forty five in age, brown hair and dark warm clothes to keep the rain off. The man was smiling warmly down at him. The passenger opened the door and was instantly hit with icy cold air. He pulled his jacket closer against his neck and got out of the car.

"Good evening." The man held out his hand to shake the passenger's. His grip was warm and firm. The passenger remembered that firm hand shakes were best, so squeezed his hand in return. "I'm Peter O'Reily the year twelve coordinator. You must be Jonathan Lexmark."

Jonathan Lexmark. Yes. That's my name. The passenger recalled. Strange that I had forgotten.

"Welcome to Adalias."

The driver carried Jonathan's green duffle bag up the steps and dumped it inside the front doors, then left. Jonathan watched as the black car pulled away, the rocks hissing under the tiers, the red tail lights the only way he could actually see it's presence.

"Was he like that the entire drive?" O'Reily asked, indicating to the swiftly vanishing car.

"Yes," Jonathan replied, then shivered. "Icy." He wondered what he had done to make the driver refuse to talk to him?

"It is rather cold in here, isn't it? Come on I'll show you to your room and then the dining room. I had the cook put a plate aside for you. You are hungry?"

Jonathan nodded his head, then walked up the steps beside O'Reily and hauled his duffle bag over his shoulder with a grunt. The entrance to the school was through a large ornate wooden and stained glass door. The glass was painted with flowers and birds native to the area, reds, blues, greens... really nice to look at. Inside the air was virtually the same out side, maybe colder. The floor was polished cream marble? Jonathan could not quite decided how would be best to describe it. There were stair ways leading up to the left and right, the walkway continuing straight through another archway. The walls to the left and right had other hallways through archways, from what he could see their outer walls were mainly windows. In the middle of the ceiling was the most amazing and beautiful chandelier Jonathan had ever seen, made of cascading crystals all shaped like teardrops and diamonds and altogether almost as big as he was. Jonathan stood gaping at it, marveling at how the lights cast tiny rainbows on the beige walls and roof. O'Reily had walked part of the way up the stairs to the left and came down to prod him on wards.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" He grinned at Jonathan as he walked still turning back to look at it. "Apparently that was all hand carved from one huge piece of lead crystal a few centuries ago."

"Must have taken a long time."

The next level was where the dormitory for Jonathan's year level was located. A warren of halls with paintings of hunters and kings and only God knows who else the men up there were. The doors were on either side of the hallway, Jonathan counted fifteen doors to his left as he was escorted down. He could hear the voices of young men laughing and chatting behind some of the doors. When they reached the end of the hall, O'Reily unlocked the very last door on the left and turned on the light. The light bulb hung from a wire from the roof. There was a single bed with only a mattress against the right hand side wall, a desk with a small book shelf and lamp on the other, a built in wardrobe next to the door, and a window in the far wall. On the wall above the bed there was a radiator. It smelled musty, unused for a long time. Jonathan was tempted to open the window but the rain was running down it in sheets so he decided against it. He dropped my bag at his feet and turned to face O'Reily empty of all thought. He was still smiling, if a bit strained.

"This will be your room. I'll show you where the linen press is so you can make your bed after you've eaten." Then his expression turned serious. "Now, some of the boys may give you a hard time over this room, but it's all nonsense, alright? If anyone starts to give you a hard time be sure to tell me."

Jonathan nodded dutifully, completely at a loss as to why there would be any trouble.

The dining room would be best described as a hall. It was down stairs and in the center of the building. From what information Jonathan could gather all the class rooms and schooling... things are all down on the ground level to make it easier to get to. The upper levels were all used to house the students and teachers. The dining room was filled with rows of long tables and chairs, with the kitchen at the far end of the room, a bench where heated food is displayed and dished out separating the two areas. There was a student sitting at one of the tables near the left wall. He had dark hair and eyes, and looked up to watch O'Reily and Jonathan as they walked towards the kitchen. He wasn't reading or eating, just sitting there.

Perhaps he was waiting for someone? Jonathan thought. O'Reily ignored him and went straight to the fridge to get out Jonathan's awaiting plate. Jonathan caught the solitary boy's eye and gave him a small smile. He seemed surprised and silently hurried out of the room, vanishing out into the outer hallway. Jonathan thought he might have been in his year level, but he had always had difficulty picking ages.

O'Reily presented Jonathan with a white plate with meat, mashed potato, peas and carrots on it covered with cling wrap.

"Do you want it heated?" He asked.

Jonathan shook my head. "Cold's fine." He took the plate and sat down on the nearest chair, O'Reily sat opposite him. Outside lightning flashed and the rain poured down the drains, giving everything a soothing sound. "Who was that boy in here?"

O'Reily blinked and looked around. "What boy?"

"He was sitting there when we came in. He left after I smiled at him." Jonathan pointed where he had been sitting.

O'Reily shrugged. "I didn't see him. Strange. Did you see where he went?"

Jonathan shook my head.

"It's past curfew that's all." Jonathan had a feeling that O'Reily wanted to say more but chose not to. But he didn't really care either way.

Jonathan made the bed with the linens O'Reily provided. The room still smelt that musty way, but still the rain outside stopped him from opening the window. Eventually he curled up under the blankets and was attempting to get to sleep when there was a hesitant knocking at his door. He ignored it for a few moments, but got up with a sigh when it started to get more insistent.

"Who is it?" Jonathan growled, opening the door to find the boy from the dining room standing there in his school uniform like he was ready for class. He blinked. "Hello? Who are you?"

The boy gave Jonathan a slight smile, tilting his head to the side a bit. "Alex. You must be Jonathan." He said. "Can I come in? I just want to talk."

Jonathan shrugged noncommittally and walked back to the bed to lie down again. Alex quietly closed the door after him and looked around the room for a few moments before perching on the edge of the desk. Jonathan lay looking up at him, into his dark dark eyes, and Alex just sat there looking back at him. "What?" Jonathan groaned. He was starting to ache behind his eyes, like he hadn't slept for two days. He pressed his knuckles against his brow in an attempt to relieve the pressure.

"It's just..." Alex said sadly. "No one hardly ever seems to notice me here."

"Apart from me. Why?"

He shrugged. "They just don't. They haven't for a long time. Comes in useful at times, like when I want to sneak out at night or leave in the middle of class. Most of the teachers will look right through me like I'm not even there."

"That's... creepy."

"Yeah, well, I've always figured I wasn't real, you know. Like I was a Mental Projection From Space." He shrugged again with a grin, then looked up when a bell tolled in the distance. He slid from the desk and peered closer at Jonathan when Jonathan flinched. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I just get ... headaches a lot."

He frowned and leaned closer still. If Jonathan's head didn't ache he probably would have been irritated at the proximity, but eventually Alex shifted away. "I better go let you sleep." He said in a slow, not quite worried voice. "I'll see you later." Jonathan closed his eyes and tried to settle into the pillows in a way that didn't hurt his neck. He didn't hear the door close.

Breakfast found Jonathan down in the kitchen again, this time literally swarming with boys of all ages, all dressed in their crisp school uniforms. As soon as he entered all eyes swung in his direction, as he had no uniform yet, so was dressed in jeans and a sedate grey jumper. He ignored then and stood in line for breakfast. Sausages, eggs on toast, serial, fruit juice and a cup of tea. Jonathan was surprised at the amount, but was glad for the heat of his tea, as he had woken feeling like there was ice in his blood. Looking in the mirror in the bathroom he had sworn his lips were blue.

He sat at a spare spot at a table and a group of five boys he assumed were his age swarmed around to sit with him. Their leader, a dark haired drone like the lot of them only with keen blue eyes sat opposite him.

"I hear you got the boogie man's room." He said grinning with malevolence.

"Hm." Jonathan grunted, chewing his sausage with disinterest. "Really?"

"Yeah, a former teacher. He haunts this whole place you know. He hung himself in your room after he murdered a student in one of the class rooms after the kid witnessed him chopping up another student. No one knows what happened to the body parts except for the little finger they found hanging from the sausage mincer!" The boys all burst out into cackles. Jonathan continued eating without being phased.

"Really." He said after he had finished his sausage, the groups eyes all peering at him with a hungry sort of light behind them. "And what does this janitor-"

"Teacher." Another boy corrected.

"Teacher do while he is haunting this place? Moan? Rattle chains? Rearrange rooms?" Jonathan started his eggs on toast. The butter had soaked into the bread, just the way he liked it. Some of the boys snickered at his comment, the leader rolled his eyes.

"He had a taste for boys." The leader continued, trying to sound eerie and failed.

"Is that all. Oh. Okay. Jonathan snapped up the last of his breakfast and stood to take his empty dishes to the trolleys provided for them. He refused to look back at those boys, instead headed back to his room to gather his things for class.

Jonathan's first class that day was Physics, a subject that he had struggled with at his old school, and bemoaned being forced to study here. His physics teacher was old, old, so old he might as well have been crawling instead of walking his back was so bent. His name was Mister Fitsgimmonds, Capital Letters a Must. He spoke crisply, accentuating each individual word, and made any displeasure known with a quick wit that might as well have been a whip it could be so biting. Mister Fitsgimmonds' hair was bright white and fine, defying all sense of gravity as though he was a walking electric shock. His skin was so sagged and wrinkled that if he had not actually been moving, Jonathan would have mistaken him for a corps who's skin was literally hanging from it's bones. He wore black robes of some kind. Or perhaps it was a cloak? Despite finding the teacher intimidating, Jonathan was impressed by that whip of a tongue that put the leader of the boys that had tried to scare him at breakfast Back In His Box. Jonathan decided instantly he liked this teacher, and continually had to correct himself from calling him "Master" instead of "Mister". He probably had been a "Master" before the modern school terminology kicked in. Mister Fitsgimmonds barely ran his eyes over Jonathan's attire and grunted before shooing him to his seat and turned to write out the latest equations out on the black board. The chalk clicked and and squeaked as it touched the greening surface.

The class room was relatively small, fitting twenty five or so desks closely together in rows of five with an isle down the middle of the room. The teacher's desk was upon a platform at the front of the room with the black board behind it. The outer wall was completely made of windows with what could have been a view of the gardens is the continued rain did not obscure any observance from them. Old maps clung to the walls with the same desperation that the spiderwebs had, completely covering back wall and most of the side wall. The floor was bare floorboards and Jonathan figured that it was not the kind of high quality flooring that let you walk bare foot upon it. He shivered. The pale light of the sun though the clouds providing virtually no heat in this room. The fluorescent lights flickered constantly, and Jonathan squinted, trying to ignore it.

Jonathan sat shivering in the back of the room, his breath frosting as it left his body and squinted at the complicated formulas and instructions on the board. No one seemed to notice how the instructions on the mid left side of the board did not seem to make complete words. Like the letters were splashed with water or there was wax on the board that made writing legible letters impossible. Jonathan figured that must be it, but then, why would a teacher knowingly write over an area of the board they knew the students would not be able to understand? Jonathan put it down to Mister Fitsgimmonds being incredibly tough and did his best to copy every thing down anyway.

Even so, he soon found that for once he could actually understand what was being taught to him. Jonathan liked Mister Fitsgimmonds a lot.

At exactly nine o'clock, as was his habit, Jonothan later noticed, Alex knocked on the door. Jonothan always let him in, and they would sit and talk until the bell in the distance chimed eleven, then he would leave. They talked about everything,from books and movies, to the kind of girls they liked, comics (Alex had a real thing for original Phantom comics. Personally Jonathan preferred the X-men and their universe.), past holidays and adventures...

"What do you want to do with your life?" Jonathan asked him. It was a question he liked to ask people. "If you had all the money you ever needed, what would you do, where would you go, what would you do with it?"

"I always wanted to fly." Alex said dreamily. "I'd get my pilot's license and build my own plane. Not an air liner, but one of the original bi-pedal ones. I'd love to fly over the amazon and all the rain forests and jungles, and learn all about the ancient cultures like the Incas and Myans. Machu Pichu is a must. If I could I think I would stay there as long as possible and every day look at the ruins."

Alex was fascinated with archeology among other things.

"Have you ever been to the Public Record Office?" Jonathan asked him. Alex hadn't yet.

Jonathan found Alex easy to talk to and listen to, unlike all the rest of the boys in the school who were snotty little know it alls.

"Pure breeds are like that." Alex sneered as they discussed the other boys. "They get off on their attempts at power tripping. But I am secure in the knowledge that most of them will turn out to be no-hopers living on welfare for the rest of their lives." Alex smiled strangely, eyes going distant.

"How do you know?" Jonathan asked softly. Alex shrugged.

"I don't. But it's a comforting thought." He looked around the room, looking at the roof corners. "So, have you seen him yet?"

Jonathan blinked. "Who? The janitor?"

Alex snorted with amusement. "The ghost, a janitor. My goodness! What a terrible assistance, staying here forever... doomed to ever sweep the marble floors."

Jonathan also had noticed that Alex had a theatrical bent.

"No, I haven't seen him." Jonathan saw how Alex pouted with disappointment. "But it was very cold in here this morning." He added. "The air is supposed to do that when ghosts are about, right? Perhaps he came while I was asleep?"

Alex scrunched up his nose. "Nah, that's just crappy heating."

(INSERTLINEBREAKHERE)  
The next few days passed in a blur for Jonathan. Somehow he managed to gather school supplies for his desk and uniforms to fill the wardrobe. His figured either Peter or Alex found them for him, because he had no money to buy them.

Jonathan mostly didn't see Alex during the day. He had different classes. At night Alex would come to his door right on nine o'clock and they would talk. Alex's family lived near by, just in the nearby town. Sometimes he went to visit them at night. Jonathan had no idea how he managed to get around at night without anyone noticing. Alex's sister was ill apparently, possibly cancer of some kind, however the doctors couldn't figure it out.

If it were my sister, Jonathan thought. I wouldn't be going to school at all... but then again I don't have a sister. Or a brother. Where are my parents? Thinking about them is hard, it makes my head ache. I wonder what they are doing, and how they are?

"Dear Mum and Dad," Jonathan decided to write a letter to them. It was raining again. It did that a lot there. "How are you? I hope you are having a wonderful time and that I will see you again soon. It has been... seven days since I arrived here and I am still wondering why I am here. It's a nice place, don't get me wrong, and the teachers are pretty cool, but... I don't know. I feel like I am missing something. I am studying physics, Australian History, Biology, Art and English. Same old stuff as at the old school. The teachers are stricter though, but that is cool. Some of the kids are annoying little shits, but that's to be expected. I will not mention their names because I can deal with them my self thank you. One of the kids that I am sort of friendly with is ignored by everyone else. It's really wired. His sister has cancer or something, so he spends as much time as he can with her. Physics is really interesting at times, but most of it I already know. I didn't know I was so smart. (HA!) No, really, this whole place is so familiar. One of the class rooms in particular I swear I've been in before. Do you believe in past lives? I don't normally, but now I'm starting to wonder..."

Jonathan's head started to ache again. He rubbed his head and heard himself groan softly. He was suddenly hit with a strong dizziness and everything faded to gray.

Jonathan opened his eyes to bright light, which hurt a lot. Peter was holding him in his arms, ecstatic that he was awake. Peter was shaking him, prattling on about something which Jonathan couldn't understand.

"Are you speaking Chinese?" Jonthan asked, trying to shove him away. "Because I don't understand Chinese." He just wanted to go to sleep where it was warm. He was so cold and ached all over. Especially his left arm. Peter pulled him up and against him which almost made Jonathan scream. There were other people in the room, all talking funny and moving too fast for what was possible. Jonathan leaned heavily against Peter's chest, gasping with pain and dizziness as the room span, then he was gone again.

"I have very low blood pressure at times." Jonathan explained to Alex in the evening after he woke up with a bandaged head and a cast on his left arm. It still hurt. He was waiting for the next set of pain killers to kick in. He could just about chew them like candies. Jonathan didn't think they worked very well or as long as they should.

Alex was sitting in his customary spot on the edge of the desk, leaning forward listening with concern. He hadn't gone to visit his sister tonight. "What causes it?" He asked. Jonathan shrugged.

"I dunno. It just happens."

"Are you drinking enough water?"

"Yes." Jonathan said in that 'Yes dad' tone.

Alex continued to peer at him with an dd expression. "What about the doctors?"

Jonathan shrugged again. "They don't have any ideas. I just have to live with it and make sure there are people around if I go swimming, that kind of thing."

"What about driving?"

He fiddled with the edge of the cast up around his elbow. "Can't." He sighed.

"Oh." Alex looked as bummed as Jonathan felt, head bowed. Then he looked up and smiled. "But you'll just have to use a chauffeur, then, eh?"

(INSERTLINEBREAKHERE)  
Jonathan didn't see Alex for the next few days. He was back in class with the other boys snickering at him behind his back. He could hear them, but he figured that was what they wanted. They laughed at how he fainted "All the time", how he had "imaginary friends" and silly little things that probably could have been hurtful if he could be bothered listening.

Alright, Jonathan decided privately. They did hurt. He hated the little bastards with their perfect hair and perfect uniforms, and inside jokes. But Jonathan tried to ignore them and the strange looks Peter gave him when ever he saw him. Peter had asked if Jonathan would agree to share a room with someone in case he "fainted" again. When Jonathan replied that the only person that he even remotely wanted to be in the same room with was Alex, Peter looked almost horrified. Jonathan had had enough of this.

"What's so bad about Alex that has everyone ignoring him?" Jonathan exploded in Peter's shoe-box of an office. Peter had a desk covered with papers and school work and books. Jonathan had no idea how he could find anything on it. He had two three-drawer filing cabinets with pot plants overflowing on the tops of them. There were certificates framed hanging on the wall and a number of photos of whom Jonathan assumed were his family. A wife and two kids who all looked unremarkable and the same as each other. Peter sat in his chair opposite me looking at Jonathan like he had spewed something foul onto his perfectly polished shoes.

"I've been wanting to discuss some things with you actually." He said calmly, wheeling his chair over to his filing cabinet to pull out a piece of paper. Jonathan recognised it as the letter to his parents he had been writing.

"What are you doing with that? And what has this got to do with Alex?" If Peter was going to change the subject here, Jonathan was going to be really, really pissed off.

"Are you feeling suicidal?" Peter asked abruptly.

"Nooo." Jonathan replied, wondering what the HELL was going on. Peter looked back at the letter.

"Because here you write that you uh, hope to see them again soon. Your parents."

Jonathan was starting to get a horrible sinking, foreboding feeling in his chest. "What's going on?" He asked slowly to make sure what he was saying was what came out.

Peter looked surprised, then nervous. "Don't you know? Oh dear."

"Don't I know what? What is going on?" Jonathan could hear rushing water in his ears like waves and the ocean.

"Er... Well... Your parents are... abroad."

Jonathan sighed with relief. "For a second there I thought you were going to tell me something bad had happened to them!" He laughed for a few moments not noticing how Peter was forcing a smile. "Can I have it back please," He asked after he settled. "I haven't been able to finish it." Peter handed the letter over and Jonathan folded it and placed it in his pocket. "I don't suppose you know their current address?"

Peter continued to force a smile. "Not at the moment, however if I hear from them I will be sure to tell you."

Jonathan ended up leaving the office completely forgetting how Peter never answered his question about Alex.

(INSERTLINEBREAKHERE)

"I can't stay for much longer." Alex told Jonathan abruptly one evening. Jonathan was busy writing up a History essay (due the next week), while Alex stood by the door dressed in his uniform as usual, but was fidgeting like he was incredibly excited and could barely keep from dancing. "I'm going home with my sister tonight." He said.

Jonathan blinked. "Is she coming home from hospital? That's great!"

Alex smiled warmly and shook his head. "No. She wont come back from hospital." Jonathan frowned, wondering what it was he didn't understand, while Alex stepped into the room and up to him. "I wanted you to know," Alex said quietly. "that I really enjoyed getting to know you, and I will look forward to seeing you again. Although I know that wont be for a long while yet." Jonathan's frown grew deeper, as Alex continued talking. "You are one of the few people that bothered to take notice."

Jonathan wanted to ask notice of what? But Alex already leaned close so that their foreheads touched and Jonathan was suddenly aware of the almost lack of substance to Alex's body, the lack of blood-pumping flesh, even though there was warmth and solidity. "Your eyes were squinting while others were squeezed shut. Open your eyes fully." Alex said like he was reciting another person's words.

Jonathan pulled back, not sure if he should be terrified or not. Alex was still Alex, still dressed in the school boy uniform, still smiling warmly, but now Jonathan actually noticed that there was a... kind of glow around his whole person. Like he was back lit. Alex was not transparent exactly in the same way that he was not totally there.

"You're dead?" Jonathan whispered with wide eyes.

Alex nodded once.

Jonathan was suddenly hit with thousands of questions all at once and struggled to bring them to his lips. "Why are you here?"

"Waiting for my sister." Alex smiled serenely again. "She's not ready to go yet, but she will soon."

"No," Jonathan corrected. "I could understand you visiting your family in town, but why are you here, at this school? Why come to me?"

"Well..." Alex looked around him like he expected someone to hear him. Even now he was theatrical. "My brother is a teacher here. I've been visiting him during the night and we play chess. He was really surprised that you could see me, but then again, here is the proof."

"Who? Not Peter?"

Alex made a funny face. "No, not him. Your Physics teacher."

"WHAT?!" Jonathan shrieked, then remembered to keep his voice down in case he disturbed the other boys. "No way. Here I thought your sister was this young girl around my age. How old are you -were you? How old is your sister?"

Alex thought for a moment. "Lets see... Lina would be ninety four next spring. Samuel, or Mister Fitsgimmonds to you, is my baby brother. Talk to him in the morning about it."

"How did you die?"

Alex shrugged noncommittally. "I don't know. It doesn't matter now. I live in a much better place now."

Jonathan wasn't sure what to say about that, but then Alex was gone, and Jonathan was left sitting in bed blinking, wondering if he had been dreaming the whole thing.

(INSERTLINEBREAKHERE)  
Mister Fitsgimmonds was away for the next day. The rumor running around the halls was that there was a death in his family. Jonathan made no comment when he over heard it, instead concentrated on placing his feet in front of the other to get from the breakfast hall to the class room. He still was not sure if he should believe that Alex had been a ghost or if it had just been a really strange dream. What ever it was it left him dog tired and drained. His eyes felt like they were going to fall out of his head and his limbs felt weighed down and weak.

Jonathan collapsed into his spot in the physics room with a sigh, resting his head on his folded arms, shivering as usual with the rooms constant lack of heat. He began drifting to sleep, listening to the sounds of other students filling the rooms, laughing and joking with each other. Chairs sliding along the splintered floor, papers being shifted, desk lids being lifted. All through the noise there was a slight whisper from the back of the room that caught his attention. He wasn't sure what it was that caught his attention, but soon he was focused completely upon the whispering. It sounded like a boy was there reciting some sort of poetry. Shakespeare maybe? Why would anyone practice reading Shakespeare during a physics class? Perhaps they were in the next class room and it was just coming through the wall?

A ruler slapping down on his desk made him cry out with fright and the other boys laugh mockingly. The substitute teacher Ms. D'Amore was standing there dressed head to toe in tight black leather in the style of a dominatrix, and hitting the meter-rule against her palm like it was a horse whip. Jonathan felt his face heat up as he took in her appearance. Her died black hair framed her face but did not hide her hostile glare aimed directly at him. Jonathan leaned away from her as thought that would help. It didn't, in fact it made her lips tighten, and her smacking of the ruler harder.

"Since you obviously know your mathematics so well that you can sleep in my class, perhaps you would like to show the class how to correctly complete these equations." She pointed the ruler at the the black board which was covered with complicated equations. Jonathan stood and went to the board, aware of how the entire class was waiting for him to make a mistake. Thankfully they were equations that he was familiar with and so he went about following the formulas as Mister Fitsgimmonds had taught. However as he filled the space of the board at the mid left hand side he realized that the chalk was once again not writing on the board properly. He could see the splatterings on the board now that he was up close, and frowned as he peered at them. He had thought it was wax, but as he wrote over the splatters the chalk was absorbed not dispelled. He touched it with his fingertips and was shocked when they came back warm, wet and red. He stared at his fingertips with horror, realizing that what was actually on the board was dripping blood.

"What are you doing, boy!" Ms. D'Amore snapped impatiently, making him look up at her with wide eyes.

"It's blood!" Jonathan breathed, reaching out his hand to show her, feeling the room beginning to spin. He didn't hear her reaction.

Mister Fitsgimmonds was waiting by Jonathan's bedside, sitting in chair and reading A Brief History of Time. Jonathan opened his eyes and squinted with confusion, making a small pained sound as the blood came pumping through his brain again.

"Hello," Mister Fitsgimmonds said when Jonathan fixed eyes with him. "how are you feeling?"

"Like shit." Jonathan replied, not caring that he swore in front of a teacher. Mister Fitsgimmonds just chuckled with amusement and watched as Jonathan looked around the room looking completely lost. "Where am I?"

"In your room at Adalias school for boys."

"What?" Jonathan's voice rose as he looked around frantically, panic beginning to come through. "Where's my mum?"

Mister Fitsgimmonds frowned. "I don't know, but there is a nurse one the grounds. Shall I get her?"

"No." Jonathan reached out and snared his teacher's cuff and clung so tightly that his knuckles turned white. "Tell me what is going on."


End file.
